Screen Saver

He has a red sports car as a screen saver on his computer.

I told him, “You are just like one of my students.”

I’m thinking now maybe I should teach them Great Expectations if he couldn’t put it down.

He used to tell me how he never thought about going to college—that if it weren’t for Angel, his friend who said he was good at math and told him to take classes, that he never would have gotten a degree.

His mother wouldn’t approve of him being with a white woman. My mother knows this. When I told my mother that he has his engineering degree, my mother said, “What white woman would want him? I’ve never heard of an engineer with no job.”

“He’s an actor, Mom.”

He told me he can’t wait to get back to work. We met catering. We were working for a cheap company that didn’t serve us dinner. He swept the filet mignon for the guests from the proofer for me. I was “too good” following the rules to do it for myself—I didn’t want to get in trouble. But it was very romantic how he did it for me. He had a fuck you attitude about the whole establishment, that they owed us dinner. I did too, but I was too chicken to act on it.

He made me feel better about my week just be being him. My French friend says I always talk about him “happily smiling.”

He used to work at the same school where my girlfriend that just bought the condo works. She is white and is dating a Latino.

I had this fantasy during Extreme Makeover: Home Edition. I mean, all those people play the cancer card…why not him? Once, I told him I had this fantasy that his career would take off—he’d have this huge house and I could live in the guest house. He said to me, “Why would you live in the guest house? Why not the main house?”

I’ve been thinking about his screen saver.

Saver.

I hope he gets his red sports car.

I hope my students do too.